Saturday, April 30, 2011

...and I have not blogged in nearly a week! What can I say - busy, busy, busy and it's a good thing not bad so I cannot complain. One thing I have to say about my life - it's never, ever boring!

Anyway - I played a bit with our new Grand Calibur and some mega nesties and made this shaped card for this week's challenge on the Delightful Inspirations blog:

This is a progressive challenge and by playing each week, you earn the following week's digi! Isn't this little fairy princess a cutie?

The gals at Sentimental Sundays would like to invite you to stop by tomorrow for a very special Sentimental Sundays challenge! This week's challenge will be "Mother's Day" or "For a Woman." The reason why this one is special is that we will have an optional challenge of "Craft with a Child." We feel that it's a wonderful thing to be able to bond with a child through crafting and art!

For all those who submit something created by a son, daughter, niece, nephew, child next door, etc, you will automatically receive the Krafty Kids Sentiments for the crafty child and the Mother's Day Sentiments for the crafty adult who helped them. If you like, you can grab our button below to help us spread the word about our special challenge :)

I also have been coloring up a storm and here's a slideshow of a set of note cards I made for my dsil:

The image is Cyclamen from the Wax Fruit Company. Oh how I love the artwork that Arielle creates - it's an absolute joy to color!!!!

I have spring flower pix to share and also some more Wax Fruit Company cards so hopefully I will get off my duff and get some blog posts done for next week!!!! I have a stamp camp coming up on May 7 (anyone in the Denver metro area that wants more info just email me) and I'll be sharing that project too.

Sunday, April 24, 2011

Today's challenge on Sentimental Sundays is to use at least three punched elements on your project. Given my total love of anything punchy - this was not hard at all for me. Our co-sponsor this week is the delightful Leah Cornelius of Heart Song Designs and I have used one of her images on my card:

I also made a second card using this image:

The background on both cards was stamped using the Pretty Petals background stamp from SU. My challenge cards uses Lovely Lilac and the second card is stamped with Daffodil Delight. Those are also the colors of the coordinating card stock used on both cards. The image panels were cut using nesties and the images were colored with Copic markers. The pearls on the second card are from Pizzazz Aplenty (thanks Judy for having such great embellies!) and the sentiment was embossed with some Melon Mambo embossing powder which will be available on May 1 from SU.

Saturday, April 23, 2011

Well Mr. Blogger is still up to no good ----!. My line spacing just won't work the way it used to. I hate cluttered code and it's forcing me to put crap in that I don't want to just to get the spacing right. Any suggestions on alternative editors that can be uploaded to Blogger would be most welcome.

One of the things that I truly love about working with digital paper is the ability to scale it down to fit the design you want on your card front. Here's a couple simple cards that I did using some digital Beyond the Garden dsp from SU's Summer Mini Catalog available May 1.

I gave the keyboard a shower, but maybe bath would be a better description. I took it to the bathtub and ran really hot water over it and dried it out really well. Plugged it back in and there are only a few keys that are sticking, and those just a tiny bit. Might just pull those individual keys off and wash them down. I had always heard that this was possible, but never actually tried it till today. I figured I was going to replace it anyway so if it didn't work nothing was lost. It worked and now I will wait to replace it till something more major goes wrong!

Well tomorrow will bring a new challenge on Sentimental Sundays and this week we have an additional sponsor - Heart Song Designs. I love Leah's images and I have used one on my sample, so come back and visit tomorrow and check it out.

Friday, April 22, 2011

Still fighting with Mr. Blogger - he's winning so far but I have a plan....

I have a card for this week's Designed to Delight challenge:

The card uses a recently released set from D2D that is so cute. Card base is Old Olive and I've used Pacific Point, Melon Mambo, some bg dsp and my lacey square nesties die. I colored the image with Copics and I am slowly but surely getting a bit more confident and adventurous with using them.

I have to stop typing now as the keys on my keyboard are really sticking (couldn't possibly have anything to do with that Dr. P I spilled on it this afternoon). Guess it's time for a new keyboard. I tried cleaning it and it just isn't working out. I really want a wireless keyboard anyway! I'll be back soon with some Mother's Day cards I made to share with you. Hopefully, with a nice new keyboard to type my post on too!!!!!

Thursday, April 21, 2011

As you may have gathered from the dire shortage of posts on the old bloggo - things have been a bit busy. Hopefully they will slow down and I can actually get back to what passes for normal in my life soon. Time will tell.

Anyway, old Mr. Blogger is being a git again and making things format in wierd ways so we'll see how this all shakes out. Monday brought a new challenge (Spring/Easter) at Kaboodle Doodles sponsored by Some Odd Girl. Here's mycard:

I am finished with stamp camps now until May 7, but I have some wonderful projects to share with everyone that were made in those first three weekends in April. The weather has been nasty (although not as nasty as in some parts of the country) and there hasn't been much sun but hopefully I can get some decent pictures soon and post a little slideshow. I've got a couple digital projects in the works too so watch for some freebies soon!

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

The week has totally gotten away from me. Maybe you'll understand why in a minute. First up - my Kaboodle Doodle challenge card that should have posted on Monday! Our challenge this week is Cute & Cuddly Animals and our sponsor is Digital Delights.

Here's my card:

Yesterday afternoon I had the great pleasure of getting to meet one of my very favorite online blogging buddies, Pat Adam (the Rubbermaid herself)! We had a fantastic lunch and I am so hoping that she will come to visit again soon. I think that it is so wonderful to connect live and in person with people that you come to know only via their online presence. It was great fun and she is a total delight - just as I knew she would be! Thanks also to her son Justin for taking this picture of us, it was great to meet you too!

Then, last night dh and I went out and bought this:

Meet the new Mudmobile! It's a 2011 Prius and I am soooooo excited. The old Forrester was making noises like it was going to make some trouble and dh didn't want that to happen while he is living on the boat this summer. It's gorgeous and so comfortable, but it will take a little getting used to as I want to take full advantage of it's energy savings capabilities.

Last stamp camp in April coming up this weekend and it promises to be great fun. I have made a few revisions on my card and will share it with you later. Downline meeting tomorrow morning too. Yikes! I'm taking tomorrow and Friday off from my day job so that I can get myself pulled together and not mess up!

Monday, April 11, 2011

Hello and welcome to a very special blog hop today! You may have been on the first hop that Whimsy put on for this special cause. Well, there were so many who volunteered to join in that we had to do a second one! The illustrators of Whimsy Stamps have come together to draw a special set of digi images for the purpose of raising money for the relief effort in Japan. All proceeds from the sale of these images will be donated to that cause. Kenny K, Raindrop Echo Designs, Meljens Designs, and Crissy Armstrong all contributed art work.

For the whole month of April, you can purchase the images as a set or individually (your choice) by visiting this page on the Whimsy store site. Please consider helping this special cause by purchasing one or all of the digital images we are offering.

If you have landed here from Kristina's blog, you are right on track. If you have come here randomly and would like to start hopping from the beginning, please go to Ann's blog. She has the blog rotation order posted if you need to refer to it.

The amazing ladies of two design teams have come together to host this blog hop for you! The team from Sentimental Sundays and the Kenny K Krafty Girlz have joined forces to design some amazing jaw dropping creations for you. You have seven days to hop through all the blogs and enjoy all the lovely creations from these talented people.

The hop runs from now through til Sunday April 17 at noon. There will be several opportunities to win blog candy! Four random commenters will get a chance to receive one of the three individual images or Ann's sentiment set. So be sure to leave comments all along the way for your chance at a free digi! Also, if you post the "Help for Japan" button on your blog's sidebar, you can enter into the draw for the grand prize! The grand prize will consist of the entire digital set made just for this cause as well as a gift certificate donated by Ann of Raindrop Echo Designs worth $10 to use at the Whimsy Stamps store! To enter, you must help us advertise for this cause by posting the "Help for Japan" button on your blog's side bar (just grab it from the top of this post) and then get your name on the Inlinkz option on Ann's post so we can be sure to find the winner.

Now on to my project:I have used the Kimono Bear and one of Ann's wonderful sentiments in my project today. Remember, for the whole month of April you can get the entire set of images that we have all used in our projects by going here. You will get a total of 8 sentiments and 3 wonderful images all for onlly $9.

Next you'll want to visit Ann's blog to continue hopping. Thank you so much for your support of this very worthy cause.

This week on Sentimental Sundays we are remembering Treasured Moments. Our sponsor this week is the marvelous Melissa Jenkins of Meljen's Designs.

Here's my card:

Some of my most treasured moments have been shared with dh aboard Belmira. I am really looking forward to making more memories this summer too!!!!! I really have to get a light box as the colors on this are so much nicer than they are showing up on this picture. Maybe I'll try to get a better pic this afternoon in the sunlight. Image is from Meljen's Designs and the sentiment is from Ann Vento. The little wheels have gems in the center and they are not showing up at all. I'll be back this afternoon with a blog hop post! The gals at Sentimental Sundays are participating in a blog hop to benefit the earthquake victims in Japan so be sure to stop back later and check that out.

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

I'm playing with digi stuff, again. Can't quite stay away from it. This time I'm making graphic frames that will coordinate with nesties. We'll see how it goes, but here's my first attempt:

Please let me know what you think and if you think this is something I should put on my Digital Freebies page.

Card base is Poppy Parade with some Sunny Garden dsp (both SU). The sentiment is from Well Scripted and the lace and brad are also SU. The little borders are from an In Stitches jumbo wheel that I cut apart and mounted on cling foam so that I could have single rows of these cute stitch patterns. Other than my digi frame and the Labels 4 nesties I cut it out with, this card uses all SU materials.

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

I'm going to try this anyway. I have been experimenting with creating some postage stamps using my blank template, the die from Whimsy Stamps and some images that I have collected.

Card #1 uses the freebie from Heartsong Designs that appeared in yesterdays post (click here to see that post). The other two feature digital images from Wax Fruit Company and you should DEFINITELY pay her blog a visit and check out the fantastic digital artwork she has to offer there. I found Areille via my bloggy buddy LeAnne who has done some outstanding work using her images.

Monday, April 4, 2011

There's a new Inspiration Sketch Challenge up on the Heartsong Inspirations blog and I just had to jump in and play again this week. Here's the sketch:

Here's my card:

Card base is Green Galore (retired SU) and I used some BG dsp on my panels which were mounted on black cardstock. Now - about the image - I created some blank postage stamp frames that work with the postage stamp die from Whimsy Stamps that you can find HERE. Ann has designed some absolutely wonderful stamps to coordinate with this die and you will see them popping up here often I am certain. The main flower image was a freebie from Heartsong Designs that you can find HERE and the sentiment is one of my spring freebies that you can download by clicking on the image below:

The zip file contains both jpg and png formats. Please let me know if you encounter any problems downloading the file.